


Snowfall

by mywordsflyup



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 05:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5404943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mywordsflyup/pseuds/mywordsflyup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She looks up as he approaches, her cheeks flushed against the cold. “This is my first snow,” she offers. </p>
<p>“I figured you didn’t get much down in Orzammar. Doesn’t go well with lava. Or so I've heard.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowfall

It’s not the cold that wakes him but the dog’s barking, cutting through the haze of his dreams. Alistair groans and when he reaches over he finds his muscles still aching from yesterday’s climb and the spot next to him empty and cold. This more than anything pulls him from sleep completely and he sits up, pushing away the furs under which they huddled the night before. The morning is too bright and the air so cold he can see his breath. He is alone in the tent and there is some satisfaction in how unfamiliar and strange that feels to him. 

He has half a mind to call her name but stops himself just in time. If anyone managed to sleep through the dog’s barking, they deserve a few more hours of rest. Instead, he opens the flap of the tent and is almost buried under a small avalanche descending from the roof. 

It certainly explains the brightness. And the cold. And probably the barking dog as well. 

They are not quite snowed in but it’s a close call. He shouldn’t be this surprised, not when they have been traveling through the Frostbacks for days now. With winter just around the corner, it’s honestly more of a surprise that they haven’t seen snow earlier. 

He spots her some distance away from the camp, perched on top of a boulder with her hood drawn deep into her face. The dog is with her, of course, running circles through the powdery snow on the ground and fruitlessly trying to catch the thick flakes right out of the air. She looks calm enough, he thinks as he slips into his boots and gets up. Not like with the rain. Certainly not like with the thunderstorm. 

He remembers her first rain. They were still in the Korcari Wilds. It wasn’t more than a light drizzle at first but enough to make her stop dead in her tracks and look up to the sky. When the drizzle turned into a downpour, he found cover underneath one of the tall pine trees, but she would not move. With her face turned up to the sky, completely transfixed and drenched to the skin within minutes. She was laughing. Or crying, perhaps. It was hard to tell from a distance with the rain drowning out every sound. He watched from underneath his tree and wondered. When the rain finally stopped, she came to him, her hands outstretched. 

“It washed away the blood”, she said. She was delighted with her pruney fingertips. He was delighted with her. 

(The thunderstorm was different. Every lightning strike illuminating her face, full of terror and awe. They had not been sharing a tent for more than a week. Perhaps two. He tried his best to remember what the Chantry sisters had told him about how thunderclouds form. She laughed as if he was telling her a fairy tale but wasn’t ashamed to press closer against him with every rumbling thunder. 

“I trust you,” she whispered in the dark, in the pause between lightning and thunder. And then again against his collarbone. “I trust you.” Against the line of his jaw. “I trust you.” Against his lips. Again and again and again.)

She looks up as he approaches, her cheeks flushed against the cold. “This is my first snow,” she offers. 

“I figured you didn’t get much down in Orzammar. Doesn’t go well with lava. Or so I've heard.” 

She smiles but makes no move to climb down from her boulder. She is taller than him like this, the angle utterly unfamiliar. 

“I tried to make snowballs like you told me about. But they keep falling apart.”

Her hands are ice-cold when he takes them in his and he lifts them to his lips to warm them with his breath. When he looks up at her like this, he thinks he can see it. The way her people must have seen her - a long, long time ago. Not like this, surely, with the fur of her hood framing her face like a halo and snow caught in her lashes. But something like it. 

“It’s too powdery,” he says, a little breathless. “Too cold.” 

“Such a shame.” She sighs and lets him kiss her knuckles before pulling him up towards her. The tip of her nose is cold against his cheek but her lips are warm as she presses them on his. 

“There will be more,” he tells her afterwards with her arms still around his neck and his forehead resting against hers. “Once we get closer to Orzammar.” 

She closes her eyes but not quickly enough for him to miss the hurt in them. They do not talk about it, not really. But he can see it, the weight pressing down on her with every step they make towards her old home. He doesn’t ask but he can see it. 

“When I left,” she says, her voice so soft he can barely hear it. “When I left, it was still spring. So long ago.” 

“An age,” he agrees because he knows.

“A lifetime.” 

They stay this way for a while, with only their breathing and their silence between them, as the snow continues to fall. He thinks he could stay this way forever, despite the cold. Despite the darkspawn. Despite Orzammar. Another age just for this. Another lifetime. 

But she gently butts her forehead against his and pulls away. “If there is going to be more snow do you think we could make a snowman? Like the ones you’ve told me about?” 

He grins. “If we get a lot more we can make one that looks like Sten.” 

She snorts just the way he hoped she would. “He would love that.” She jumps down from the boulder and lands in a cloud of snow. “But I won’t save you if you decide to throw a snowball at Morrigan’s head.” 

He laughs and his hand slides down to link fingers with her. “ _When_ I decide to throw a snowball at Morrigan’s head, I’ll make sure to let her know that it was you who gave me the idea in the first place…”

**Author's Note:**

> You can also follow my [tumblr](http://damnable-rogue.tumblr.com) if you're interested.


End file.
